Acronis Blockchain Technology Initiative

Acronis Blockchain Technology Initiative

Data Protection and Authenticity

Today's digital world contains a huge number of assets whose originality and ownership are difficult and costly to define and track. Blockchain technology can solve this problem by providing global authenticity and security for data and transactions of any kind, reducing the cost and complexity of centralized systems while making data ‘tamper-proof’.

Acronis has launched a strategic initiative to develop applications using blockchain technology for data protection. As a global leader in hybrid cloud backup and data protection, Acronis is extending its data storage and file sync & share solutions with blockchain technology to monitor data integrity and guarantee validity at all times.

How does Blockchain protect your data from tampering?

Using blockchain technology, data and transactions are processed to produce a unique signature verified by rules of consensus. When new data is entered, it can never be erased.

You can think of the blockchain as an “append-only”' ledger with transaction order that is distributed between many entities, each one keeping the same copy of it. Each record in the ledger is time-stamped, is immutable and independently verifiable. Blockchain secured data has provable integrity because the data is attributed to an irrefutable identity, is validated by all copies of the ledger, is always available, and can never be changed.

Protection against Insider Attacks Prevents accidental and malicious tampering or alteration of data from going unnoticed.

Regulatory Transparency With an independent and granular audit trail for all stored data, regulators get independent and indisputable proof that the stored data has not been modified

Portability of Evidence Stored files and transactions can be verified electronically and individually even if they were transferred elsewhere

Independent Verification Data records can be verified without reliance on chain of custody, security of keys or any trusted human or organization

Use case examples

Acronis solutions using blockchain technology can protect any data in any industry. Common use cases include property and medical records, chain-of-evidence for court documents, police video or security camera footage, intellectual property bound documents, long-term archiving that could be subject to IT audits, and ‘consortium’ data storage, where multiple entities or individuals need to securely store and exchange massive amounts of data and information.

Acronis Data Authentication ‘Prototype’ Using Blockchain Now Available

Acronis is unveiling a prototype blockchain solution to give its service provider partners and end user customers an introduction to the power of blockchain technology for data protection.

This functional prototype shows an example of how blockchain technology can be used to verify and protect data with timestamps and certificates of authenticity. Acronis is seeking input from individuals and organizations on potential data protection use cases for blockchain technology.

How does the blockchain notary work?

In the Acronis prototype, users can upload a file to the storage repository and record the fingerprint of the file in a form of the file’s hash in the Ethereum blockchain. Because the records in the blockchain cannot be manipulated, individuals or third parties can prove authenticity of the file. The completeness of all records and authenticity of each file can be checked automatically or manually.

Authenticity of a stored file can be independently checked with the information contained in the corresponding certificate. It includes the link to the record in the blockchain containing the hash of the file, name, and origin of the file. What is more important is that you do not need to trust any person or entity to verify this information using the known transparent algorithm.

Using the demo Using the blockchain notary demo is easy. Just use this drag & drop zone in your web browser to upload your file.

As soon as your file upload is completed, it will be displayed in the table below with the status “being notarized”. It takes just a few seconds to fingerprint the file and store it in the blockchain.

When completed, the status is changed to “Notarized”. You can click the file name to receive the file’s “Notarization Certificate” proving that your file was uploaded to the storage and registered in the blockchain.